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We, the Musk Chasers 




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Thanks are due the editor of Poetry, a 
Magazine of Verse for permission to reprint 
certain of these poems. 



NOV -^^ l^?l 
3)C!.A6303;j6 



Copyrighted, 1921, by 
Ralph Fletcher Seymour 



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ToW 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

We, the Musk Chasers H 

This Flesh of Fire 12 

Lips ....!..'.*.*.* 13 

Night — and Your Fingertips 14 

It Is the Night .*.'..' 15 

My Hands * * ig 

Feet 17 

I Cannot Hide Ig 

Send Me as a Gift 19 

That I Should Need 20 

We Two 21 

Shall I? '/.'.'.'/.'.'.['.'.'.'.'.'.[ 22 

Finis 23 

Strong Breast and White. . . . . 24 

Me 25 

Stern Love 26 

Till Worlds Make Way .'.*.*.* .* .* .' .* .* .* .* [ [ ] [ 27 

Let Them Be Kept From Me 28 

To One Dead 30 

My Body .....[..... 31 

Silly Moon 32 

Fly-By-Night [[ 33 

Take Their Little Necks [['.,', 34 

Come! 35 

Softly I Creep 36 

Cowards Thirst 37 

Echoes ..//... 38 

My Heart 39 

I Shall Perform Miracles 40 

Now— I Ask Nothing of You 41 

Elm Trees Make No Answer 42 

A Certain Man 43 

Elevator Man 44 



Poets 45 

Words 46 

You Leave Off 47 

Five Feet High 48 

Old Man 49 

Lord of Girls 50 

Beauty 51 

You Will Never Go Picking Wild Flowers 52 

The Loop 53 

Silent Ones 54 

Stream 55 

Losers 56 

Michigan Avenue 57 

You Must Hurry 58 

Little Bo-Peep 59 

God Made Three Things Good 60 

He Called Women to Him 61 

Thanks 62 

Dawn 63 

Until Steel Strikes 64 

All the Graves 65 

God in a City 66 

One Way 67 

So Much of Wondering 68 

L. 69 

He Stood Alone 70 

Four Corners of a Room 71 

What I Always Wonder 72 

It Will Take Many Years 74 

Nuns 75 

Little Lonely World 76 

It's No Good Running 77 

If It Were Not for This Dream 78 

Things Understood 79 

When We Die 80 



We, the Musk Chasers 



We, the Musk Chasers 

Gather us close, O stars, in your net. 
We, the tired hearts of citizens, 
We, the musk chasers 
And the rainbow seekers. 

Gather us close 

We, the lean fishers and folk undone. 
Gather us close, O stars, in your net. 



11 



This Flesh of Fire 

It is my body that suffers most from silence, 
My soul can go off and gather stars. 
Gaily, like swift flame leaping from the wood, 
Or in the dusk of evening dream a whcrfe life 

through. 
But my body gets hungry. 
It must have the feel of flesh against it. 
And the noise of lips. 

Why, God could build a pension house for souls. 
And they would roost. 
But oh, this flesh of fire 
That bums one's whole life through 1 



12 



Lips 

You are tremendous, O lips, 

No sympathy upon me. 

No bartering with the weakness that might 

come upon me I 
Nothing was made before you, you the creator, 
Cliffs only come into our lives through you. 
Forests with night on them, hungry prairie 

and sullen sand 

It was the story of a million lips that built the 

pyramids. 



13 



Night — and Your Fingertips 

I am glad for the snow falling, 

Likewise your hands 

That fall on me like snow, 

At first gently, the baby-fingers of air, 

Then swiftly, brushing on me like the sharp 

nails of demons. 
Flaying all my flesh to wind and speed. 
The night too on me falling, 
And the whole world of water lapping at my feet. 

Ah, how very sweet 

God made the world. 

When He made snow 

And water. 

Night and your fingertips! 



14 



It Is the Night 

It's the night always crying "Why not?" 
It's the moon always getting hid in your lips, 
Then rushing out and shouting 
"It's aU right. Come on!" 

Far to seaward, back to shore. 

Out to windward, reef your sails, 

Go so far, and halt your tracks. 

Catch the first glimpse, turn your backs 



I teU you, this mischief is the night, always 

crying "Why not?" 
It's the moon always getting hid in your lips, 
Then rushing out and shouting "It's all right. 

Come on!" 



15 



My Hands 

They keep repeating over and over the want 

song, 

The food and drink and money song, ^ 

Want me to forget half the time the low calls 

from my heart. 
Expect me to go around leading my own halter. 
Making my own grave among the greedy. 

And then — nights — they want things we dare 

only breathe quietly — quietly — 
The diary things, the unpublished, the unex- 

purgate. 



f 

i 



16 



Feet 

The strangest thing is how my feet go pitty-pat 

to your doorway. 
They are unleashed, wayward feet, 
That never go pathways, 
But steal grotesquely down dark caverns 
And molest the stars at night. 

You seldom follow 

You seldom run around with me on those quests 

Where the tall white women plunge, 

Where the great high towers lean. 

You seldom follow. 

But when these questings lose their lure. 

Oh then! 

The strangest thing is how my feet go pitty-pat 

to your doorway. 



17 



I Cannot Hide 

I cannot hide from you any longer, 
Red-bird mouth! 

All the long winter like a skulking thief, 
I went by tree and shaking leaf. 
Hung my head and held my breath. 

But Spring is out now, 
Geese are flying high now. 

Red-bird mouth 

How good do you think dry lips are? 
How good do you think empty arms are, when 
Spring comes? 



18 



Send Me as a Gift 

Send me as a gift something in your heart that 

no one else sees. 
Send me the dreams that go scurrying away 

from the harsh ones, 
The little useless thoughts that can't build 

bridges or sell merchandise, 
I would be one with the purple darkness 

that hangs over you when night whispers. . 
Oh, the only gift I want from you is what you 

give to no one else! 



19 



That I Should Need 

That I should need so many loves! 
Coming at dusk to hold my heart, 

Coming at dawn to twine my hair 

How many women spend their gold on one, 
How many men go with their pockets bare. 

But I 

That I should need so many loves — 
And the sun needs only the sky! 



20 



We Two 

God will let us slip sometime from the great 

cloud, 
Two poor fretted, hungry ones. 
And drop us. 

On the roofs of strong new worlds to conquer, 
Wild loves to devour. 

And you he will drop at the foot of a cliff, 
Eager and chalk for the seas of England, 
But I will drop at a pansy's lips, 
Drop — and cry upward — and reach its heart 

with my fingertips! 



21 



ShaU I? 

Little heart crying in its dusty corner, 
Poor little hands that plead, 
And the laughter that's going to seed. 
Poor little heart in the corner crying! 



Shall I be the prince outside, 

In the rainstorm beating my hands together. 

Drawing my wide cloak fold on fold? 

Or shall I leap through the shuttered window, 

Strong as a shaft of fire, 

And catch you, poor little heart in the corner. 

Catch you, and ride, ride, ride! 



22 



Finis 

Let us make songs where crying is, 

And stiffen our hearts to the wind, 

The ice storm breaks and the waves are high. 

Where the secret of dying is. 

Oh, hold my hand and haunt my lips. 
The great sky blooms tonight 
It blooms with the gold I find tonight. 
Dying — struck dead by your fingertips! 



23 



strong Breast and White 

There shall be forever the clanking of iron 

chains. 
And forever the bruising of young hearts, 
Ever the sea-gulls beating on the foam, 
The swallow and its cliff. 

There shall be forever the lure of lips, 
Running like God's voice through the world. 
Ever the strong breast and the white, 
Laid at the altars of the night. 



24 



Me 



I shall not unsay one word that is said, 

Or undo one sin, 

Let the saints howl and the pelting come in, 

I shall be the composite me. 

Of the hundreds I hurt, 

The few I love, 

And the one who gave me gorgeously 

These shall be minarets and towers and archi- 
traves and doorways 
To the temple that is me! 



25 



stern Love 

Waves must be held, 

Cliff and rock fasten rough fingers in their hair, 

Or how their screaming lusts would overwhelm 

the world! 
And you, girl with dreams, 
Fingers must grapple with you. 
Lips battle, 

Or a whole world goes to ruin 

So! 

That's love! 



26 



TiU Worlds Make Way 

Dreamily, girl, 

Duskily, night. 

Cover your dead. 

Make a plot by the old stream's head, 

Plant him and pray, 

Till worlds make way, 

And the blooms come 

Duskily, night, 
Dreamily, girl. 



27 



Let Them Be Kept From Me 

I must go alone! 

This man here with the high large heart, 

Would catch me with him as he runs the years 

through, 
He would give vision to me with his eyes, 
Melodies as light as cat's feet. 
Through his hearing. 
Oh, the myi'iad beauties I might feel. 
Going, with his heart to teach me, 
And his lips to heal. 

But I must go alone! 

Though this woman has a way with her, 

A Mary Garden lure that haunts the quick- 
pulsed, 

A buttercup voice crying so plaintively and 
thin 

She must be kept from me, after she is once 
near me, 



28 



I cannot tear her though my nails are sharp. 
And little children, 
Too much eyes. 
Too hungry hands, 

Let them be kept from me 

For I must go alone, 
As fire — or water. 



I 



29 



To One Dead 

Not for a month or a year 

Shall the poor earth smile as the earth has 

smiled. 
Your eyes will be in the roots, I know. 

Your hands at groping be busy, I know 

For months and years. 

Have you not left me undiscovered and new, 

Me, the faithful and wearily true? 

Me, the plentiful soil for you? 

Not for months and years, I know. 

Will the old seeds sprout and the old plants 

grow. 
You under the ground 
Getting gnarled and browned. 

For the soil in me that is still unf ound 

God! the soil in me. 
Strangled, root-bound! 



30 



My Body 

I bring you this evening as a peace offering, 
After the worn insouciance of the day, 
The frank beauty of my body as it comes drip- 
ping from the bath. 
I know it is beautiful, for I have seen the marble 

of it in dim lamplight, 
And it thrills with blood like a Niagara. 

After the weak clamor of the day, 
I bring the white beauty of my body, 
Like a shaft of stone. 



31 



Silly Moon 

Oh no, dear no, 

You were not to blame. 

Silly moon I 

Fd been warned to keep my feet. 

Prime my heart throbs slick and neat, 

I'd been told old wine was sweet. 

And the taste of two lips ruinous to a girl. 

Oh no, dear no. 

You were not to blame. 

Silly moon I 



32 



Fly-By-Night 

You are the fly-by-night. 
That sets the torch to men, 

They bum like chaff 

You are the enigma. 

The three-ring circus in a tent, 

You are the mirage and the North Star. 

When you call, a hundred mills listen, as grain 

When wind shrieks. 

But to be free of you 

Is to be tangless and arid. 

You are the fly-by-night, 
That sets the torch to men, 

They burn like chaff 

You are love. 



33 



Take Their Little Necks 

I ask you to be fierce, Chicago, 

As a drowning man in the first spasm 

Fierce first of all to your women. 

Trip them when they come mincing down the 

Avenue, 
Take their little necks and squeeze them, 
Frantically. 
(Women grow scatter-brained with no fingers 

at them, 
There is no white glory to them if they are not 

hurt, 
Oh, the unhurt women you see oggling at the 

shops. 
Paint and cloth I) 

And when you get a chance at men. 

Be fierce with them; 

It is their hands have made you, 

Their insistent, silly howling for the moon. 

When they wrought you, Chicago, 

They wrought pigstys out of gauze. 

And fine dreams. 



34 



Come! 

Come into the courage of two mighty hands, 
Little heart, 

Put your grass blades and your flowers 
On my fingertips, 

Rest your hungry lips 

I am he. 

The sea knows me, and the clouds racing at noon 

to take the high sun's trail. 
Or the wind that leaps to flail 
The vessel from its wharf. 
Cliffs know me, I have beat the breath 

out Qf them. 
And with the forest trees grown wild. 

Come into the courage of two mighty hands. 
Little heart. 

Put your grass blades and your flowers on my 
fingertips. 

Rest your hungry lips 

I am Love. 



35 



Softly I Creep 

Love is a valley wide as God's right hand, 

Birds are in it and the scent of leaves, 

Over the edge gay children laugh like buttercups. 

And when the rain comes, 

Rain that is desire bending the grass before it, 

I who am chosen of God, 

Desired and obtained. 

Stand straight and haunted by the sweep of 

wings. 
But how softly I creep into the shadow of His 

fingers. 
When the storm comes! 



36 



Cowards Thirst 

Cowards thirsty 

You see them standing by the wells, 

Sick-eyed, remote, 

While at their feet the whole world gushes. 

Do you remember how some nights of storm 

Bear in upon us till we split our dreams. 

Frantically dash them open for the world to see, 

Heedless if we are damned? 

Cowards try picking them up again 

Let them go, I say! 

Yes, cowards thirst. 

They dry up like deserts — ^grow tough, spiny 

things. 
Kill little green shoots. 

Bravery is a high star 

Do you think God numbers where the cowards 

are? 



37 



Echoes 

It's all right then if we take heed of the echoes, 
They come far off, like the sea's rush. 
They come far off and make no bones of 

screaming. 
The echoes of dead poets make my ears ring, 
And to the lovers, wise, dead lovers sing. 
Only — we must take heed of the echoes, 
Never forget how layer on layer the world is 

built on echoes. 
And how our hearts will become echo and grass. 



38 



My Heart 

This is my heart: 

Cliffs, 

And sea gulls beating against them piteously, 

Moons, 

Hungry and demented, 

Flowers drying up before drought. 

This is my heart: 

The dusky presence of trees 

Hung with night, 

Stars falling 

Who shall encompass it and bear chains to it? 

Who shall measure its girth 

Or give it a name? 

Not you — girl with the pleading eyes — 

Nor you — man with fire fingers 

For where is its limit, 
And where its boundaries? 



39 



I Shall Perform Miracles 

I shall perform miracles on this night, 

Split rocks are nothing to me now, 

Will you forget soon, do you think, 

The firebolt and the thunder of my love? 

I shall perform miracles! 

Close your hand upon the treasures of ten 

thousand kings, 
Rub lamps and conjure fairies to make dreams 

with you 

Will you forget soon, do you think. 

The firebolt and the thunder of my love? 



40 



Now — I Ask Nothing of You 

Now — I ask nothing of you, 

Nothing whatever. 

All this story of hands and lips, 

All this wild-wind story of eyes and hair. 

Let it be torn across the middle — ^let it be the 

serial never finished. 
I shall run along without you through the great 

dark forests, 
You will run along without me through the 

great dark forests— never mind. 
Let it be a triumph — see? I say it loud and 

clear: 
"Now I ask nothing of you, 
Nothing whatever." 



41 



Elm Trees Make No Answer 

Elm trees make no answer to me when I ask 

them about God; 
They go gently sway — sway — sway 
To the wind's tune. 
They go gently swish — swish — swish 
To the moon's lips. 
And all this sound of grass 
Talking in its multitudes, 
Whispering under the dew, 
Flinging great wisdoms to the insect crowd. 
All this world of grass 

Going sway — sway — sway to the wind's breath. 
Going swish — swish — swish to the rain's lips . . . 
It makes no answer to me when I ask about God. 



42 



A Certain Man 

Lips that were made for the glorious tasks of 

love and speech, 
Kept hungerless and stupid through these 

thirty years. 
Hungry lips are the only producers, 
Sated dogs mawl each other by the fireside, 

They use the precious things for kennels 

Fm a great believer in the hungry ones. 
Who don't live in small towns and grow fat. 



43 



Elevator Man 

You in your little cage, and I in mine, 

Elevator man, 

We will span the wide world's heaven 

Far as we can. 

You to go up and down. 

Beating up and down, 

I to beat my wings out 

On the walls of Merchant Town. 



il 



44 



I 



Poets 

We are the paper gods, 
Endlessly, rhythmically, we blow into being, 
Greece, Rome, Britain, Texas, France. 
Everywhere making cute patterns of our 

thoughts, exotic axioms. 
Frantically gauging our friends' lusts, 
Getting terribly important, finally blowing away 

on the wind 

Or, only a few remain, 

The simple thoughted, 

The simple hearted and the simple tongued. 



45 



Words 

The dead words, the husks and phantoms come 

up and haunt me. 
Warning me "Keep away — do not go near the 

graveyard." 

Yet they all go to the graveyard in the end, 
Homer's, Virgil's, Dante's — in a spray of gold^— 

Shakespeare, Poe — 
Let mine go! 



46 



^ 



You Leave Off 

Peace, O desk-sitters and pencil markers! 

Where the wind begins, you leave off. 

In your little cluttered rooms writing the price 

tags and the sales letters. 
It will be time to write "finis" soon. 
From your hands the pencils slipping, 

Where the wind begins, you leave off 

Pencil-markers, desk-sitters! 



47 



Five Feet High 

Five feet high — ^and here I stand above the 

whole wide world, 
Stand lonely and isolate — in spite of lips. 
Earth is no gas-light spectre — cannot scare me, 

run me here and there like leaves, 
All my body resisting under the sobs and 

convulsions 

Five feet of me coming out of the earth, but 

scornful and proud. 
Not to be touched — parts of me, by the tempests 

and sunshine, 
The voices and the entreaties. 



48 



Old Man 

Dawn sprang wildly to her lips, 

And the little hard breasts burst as a waterfall 

over the rocks. 
I the dark pine at the precipice neck, 
Lunged and was still, 
Then swiftly, as wild birds go to the kill. 
Toppled, and ran with her youth to the sea. 

They said I was wanton and cruel 

To have taken her youth at the height. 

To have matched the great might 

Of my years 

With her slender beauty and tremulous fears . . . 

I tell you, I lunged and was still. 
Then swiftly, as wild birds go to the kill, 
Toppled, and ran with her youth to the sea. . . . 
Pity me! 



49 



Lord of Girls 

Lord of girls in white organdy dresses, 

Little butterflies with desirous wings, 

And of the smell of valley lilies through the 

florists' doors, 
Your breath is the imagination of my soul, 
I go mightily transcendent with these wonders 

on me. 
Gathering strange flowers on a city's streets. 



50 



Beauty 

Sometimes I would not be so free with beauty, 

For it cuts me like a scythe, 

Me, not golden yet or ripe. 

Or even eager to be dead. 

Sometimes I must hold back my love, 

And jump upon my longing with hot feet. 

Or, when a wind blows northward some fine 

dusk, 
I shall gallop with myself away. 
And dreamers always have to pay 
For their dreams, 

I would not be so free with beauty. 

For it flays me Uke a flail. 

Me, not coarsened yet, and frail 

To blows. 

And the dreamer always goes 

To his cross. 



51 



You Will Never Go Picking Wild Flowers 

You will never go picking wild flowers any more, 

lady. 
You will never go hunting dragon flies, 
The old brook as he goes chasing through the 

wood, 
Won't have you as a passenger any more, 
Lady, 

Dabbling your bare feet in him, 
Licking his heart out with your greedy lips. 

Yes, I know 

It's easily understood. 
You must go stiff now. 
Furs in storage, 
Diamonds in vault, 
Limousine waiting. 

But I'll go back picking wild flowers. 

Lady, 

I'll go back hunting dragon flies. 



52 



The Loop 

Mighty-winged and austere as the memory of 

moonlit battlefields, 
The night comes over the shops. 
It makes a fairy tale with gigantic sesames 

to be opened sometime and revealed 

I hinge my faith, my whole soul's faith on the 

God behind these doors, 
The God that leaps flaming out of the windows, 
That lurks behind price cards and cost sheets. 



53 



Silent Ones 

Thank God for the silent ones, 

Who don't go about saying "I think this, you 

think that," 
Who don't shout how to save the world. 
I put my faith in them, 
I put my most private faith in them. 
They have a touch of God, 

Who merely said "Let there be light " 

And there was Ught. 



54 



li 



stream 

This stream flows through me forever, 

It cannot be denied. 

I have gone out silently nights and piled stones 

in its path, 
Only to see with the sunrise the sullen blue fleck 
That runs through me. 
It goes through no green fields sweet with the 

trill of birds. 
It goes through me, wayward as sand, 
Treacherous as dry sand, muttering to the water 

under it. 
I call it the stream of beauty, 
But I know secretly that it is the stream of pain. 
That carves me all over wrinkles and fine care, 
I know it is the wide-breasted mirage I plunge 

into and am lost. 
Though I love it — fiercely — both hands groping 

toward it — 
I know that in it are wild beasts with teeth to 

tear me 
When I gain the edge. 

55 



Losers 

I am sympathizing now with the losers, 
They who had no weapons to fight with, 
Who could only strike out blindly, and at last 

go down. 
It is they who make the world sweet, 
Who temper it with a million forebearances and 

understandings 

There is something in me crying out to be a 

loser! 



56 



Michigan Avenue 

Michigan Avenue, I know you are crazily wanton, 
You are full of women with their bodies bending 

like reeds, 
Their cheeks flaming and haunted 
By the thought of how love is coming to them. 

And you are full of men, 

At your club doors. 

Idly down the steps near The Lions, 

Dawdling with their slim legs 

And dandiness. 

But they are eating the women with their eyes. 

And going surreptitiously to look at nude 

pictures, 
Holding their hot longings back for gold 

And I see that you are full of little children. 
The blossoms 
Of this. 



57 



You Must Hurry 

You must hurry, hurry, hurry, if you want to 

catch my lips. 
They are made of stuff like spindrift. 
They have edged the clouds with gold. 
When the moon comes dancing nightward and 

the wind comes fast and cold, 
They are perched upon the highest star, they 

hold the great sky's heart. 

You must run as fast as fast, 

Nothing's fine that is not caught. 

Caught at noon today, caught when moons are 

white. 
You must snatch your fun from God if you want 

your fun. 
You must hurry, hurry, hurry if you want to 

catch my lips. 
They are racing with the sandstorms. 
They'll elude your fingertips, 
By and by. 



58 



Little Bo-Peep 

Little Bo-Peep comes back in you, 
And speedwells grow a brighter blue, 
Down the long paved street. 
Busy with feet. 
The fields come in. 

Strange, 

Is it not? 

You who have never lived a field, 

Were never born to the long hill's turning, 

When you slip with your little laugh 

The town's heart through. 

Daisies and goldenrod cry out in you! 



59 



God Made Three Things Good 

God made three things good: 

Hands that sweep the dust of dead things from 

our eyes, 
Lips that go out dusks and drink stars, 
And in the last of winter while the hedge is white, 
This fine gay faith that paints the Springtime 

in! 



60 



He Called Women to Him 

He called women to him as the sea calls home its 

gulls. 
Strange fantasies they dreamed upon him, 
Wild longings that would damn them were they 

guessed. 
Where he struck women fiercely with his love 
Little wings took root. 

He loved them for their hands, 

Mutely through the moon's hair reaching. 

He loved them for their lips. 

Blossoming 

Oh, the blossoms he could wear upon his breast! 

They loved him because God spoke in his legs. 
And where his hands fell on them. 
Little wings took root. 

Yes, he called women to him as the sea calls 
home its gulls. 



61 



Thanks 

Oh, I thank God now in the dream of dusk, 

When the stars slip out and the dark comes in, 

I thank Him now for the simple world, 

And the butterfly wings in the darkness curled; 

The bit of air I need to breathe, 

The water that I drink. 

The cows that do not hide their tails. 

The simple thoughts I think. 



62 



I 



Dawn 

The dawn comes to me sweetly, as a soft, new 

child 
Leans with its soul to drain a bit of milk. 
And I am new! 
O gray old city, 
Lift your head a moment from the pots and 

streets, 
Wash over me your meaning as a flask of fire, 
Tipped and spilled over at the altar's base. 
There are new augurings that go in blue-gray 

smoke 
Up from your shops. 

New lips that rain a torrent in me as of words. . 
Be still a moment, city, while the dawn tells 

tales I 



63 



Until Steel Strikes 

Branches twine about me, 

I am root in the soil, 

Buds swelling, hearts bursting, and the sun 

racing at noon to take the moon's veil. 
Trees lean toward me and speak rhythmically. 
Fingers linger on me as one sweet to touch, 
And hearts become fluid in my presence. 
I am all this until steel strikes me, 
All this, with blue waves licking at my feet. 
The tongues of Egyptian lovers and Greek 

singers flooding the air 



But shortly these steel tracks will strangle me, 

I shall go down into dust. 

As one who sank among many feet. 

As one who lifted from a little space of ground 

A frantic cry 



64 



All the Graves 

All the graves with their stiff, white tombstones, 
Unlike the princely hearts they cover — ^grassand 

flowers now 

They were not straight thus, 

And set in rigid rows, uncouth and cold. 

Oh, when I die, set me no such, 

Or, if I must be nailed to my six feet of earth. 

Set it, beseech you, crookedly, like my life. 

That leaned now one way, now the other. 

Never straight as stone, and never, so I pray to 

God — ^as cold. 



65 



God in a City 

Beautiful hills. 

Valleys 

And all the other things we think of when we 

think of God, 
Are not here. 

I find myself at a loss to formulate much good, 
And so I simply say 
"God!" 

As you call "Fido!" 
And let it go at that. 



66 



One Way 

There is a farewell that the splendid spirits say, 
Knowing the blossoms will be waving around 

them soon, 
Knowing there must be the last handclasp and 

the last look. 
It is not the farewell that looks back and regrets 

-—passions, distastes, 
No whining in it — no cringing to a God, 
And aenemic apologies. 
All they who are splendid people ready to be 

blown to their dust, 
Go defiantly and proud, as if they said this last 

rite at the altar base of courage and high 

dreams. 



67 



So Much of Wondering 

There is so much of wondering 

In every huddled thing, 

I never have known what to be — 

A slave, 

Or just — a, king. 

The peacock is a haughty bird, 

And flaunts a boastful tail, 

And yet it seems that I have heard 

Its pinions are quite frail. 

There is so much of wondering 

In every dinky thing 

I often get most drunk with joy 

To hear a fence-cat sing. 

And then, there are the little pools of water in 

the street. 
Where oil has dripped, and made a rainbow for 

your feet! 



68 



L. O. 

If I could be like him, with double chin. 
And eyes drawn into slits behind blue smoke, 
If I could be like him and take my sin 

As staid clerks take the air 

Perhaps I should not care. 
Perhaps I should not care how blue clouds race 
At noon, when bells are ringing twelve. 
Perhaps I should not care how dripping moons 
Whiten the night-sky's face. 



69 



He Stood Alone 

He stood alone and thrust his fists up 

Ohy the devastated spirits that have stood alone 

and thrust their fists up! 
They are mown grass now. 
Their songs are heard in the dry rustle of the 

marsh grass through the swamp, 
They are obliterate. 

And the young hearts that have gone out with 
the fascination of stars in them. 

Where are they? 

There is a path going through an autumn wood 
for them, 

The leaves crackle and dance like ghouls beating 
a requiem. 

Their young mouths stopped with hungry dust. 

Oh, the devastated spirits that have stood alone, 
And thrust their fists up! 



70 



Four Corners of a Room 

It is only four comers of a room 
That keep me from becoming God. 
I might leap out and spin stars, 
I might address myself to grass 
And long windy nights. 
But these four corners hold me, 
They have memories in them. 

They will keep me fast 

I am glad to be kept from being God. 



71 



What I Always Wonder 

What I always wonder is 

Where the great round moon's kiss 

Is. 

What I always seek 

Is the puffed wind on an apple 

Or a cheek. 

Little things I wonder at, 

Let the big go by, 

What have I to do with rain 

Or the lowering sky? 

Little things like grey, sleek mice, 

Little dwarfish men, 

How the flowers learned to bow 

At the speckled hen. 

What I always wonder is 

Where the great, round moon's kiss 

Is. 



72 



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Or to cap the climax faster 

How the clouds so noiseless race, 
And without disaster! 



73 



It Will Take Many Years 

It will take many years for me to learn about 

a hiU. 
Here Fve gone a quarter of a century, and don't 

know one yet, 
Don't know even about the feet of it, standing 

bucked up and strong against the soil. 
Don't know its lips that hold stars. 
If I could know a hill, I could know a valley too. 
And getting strength there, know oceans and 

God — and you. 
But it will take many years for me to learn 

about a hill. 



74 



Nuns 

I am glad you have your backs to me, 

I should dislike to see your mouths working so 

commonly on food 

The upward slant of your eyes as you look at 

each other, 
The slow movements that mean so much or 

little 

You eat carrots with bread, and drink black tea. 

As if you drank Christ's blood. 

Your little faces bandaged with white cloth — 

Everything in you shut behind bars, 

Even your eyes behind glasses. 

Your tongues behind prayers. 

And when you speak, 

I almost expect to hear foreign words flow from 

you, 
Words that have been cooped or hacked to 

pieces, 
Or made castrate 
For your lips. 

75 



Little Lonely World 

O little lonely world 
In the darkness curled 

Like hungry flowers 

What shall be the tale you tell, 
Dreary nights and long as well 
To the curious-eyed old moon? 

O little lonely world 
In the darkness whirled 

Like hungry hearts 

Is there not a swift, strong hand 
That will make you understand 
What the darkness is? 



76 



Il 



i 



It's No Good Running 

Sometimes my feet are leaded with bronze, 
I cannot shake songs from them, 
Sometimes my dander gets up 
And I run from them, 

But they always follow 

God is like that — he follows — he gets heavy 

in me. 
Or wherever I run, he keeps tagging after, 
Like a hungry dog. 



77 



If It Were Not for This Dream 

If it were not for this dream upon me, 

I should make my coin, 

I should grind my way to fortune with the little 

wheels, 
I should count the flying heels my slaves, to 

bind, 
I should count the eardrums and the fingers 

mine 

But I keep thinking I can touch the sky 
^ With my Ups, 



78 



Things Understood 

It is the understood things that make life, 
The water closely understanding how the shore 

leans, 
The long, brown cliffs that dream upward to the 

sky, 
And you who make my lips a resting place, 
Careful and good. 
Oh, there should be mighty poems flung for the 

things understood 

The hand that gropes, knowing, however dark, 

another hand will reach. 
Hunger that knows food, 
Feet that claim paths. 
And in the dusk of Spring, 
When new birds sing, 
Two eyes piercing the dark to find — two eyesl 



79 



When We Die 

When we die, the whole bunch of us, 
Clutching our bit of grass and love, 
We shall only repeat over and over the old songs, 
We shall only cry over and over the old cries. . . . 
Did you think you had a new song. 
Or lips that hadn't already been kissed by a 
thousand lovers? 



80 



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^th^^MMpm^i^imm 




